Why so surprised, America? Doonesbury has been preparing us for President Trump since 1987.

Garry Trudeau has drawn Donald Trump into his Pulitzer Prize-winning Doonesbury comic strips for nearly 30 years. And in the very definition of life imitating art, it turns out the cartoonist was preparing the world for a presidential run like no other.

"To those of us in the ridicule industry, the man Spy dubbed 'a short-fingered vulgarian' was a gift beyond imagining, and we made him a permanent part of our business plan," Trudeau writes in the preface of his new book Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump.

Here is what Trudeau had to say to me in an email interview about the man poised to claim the Republican presidential nomination.

Q. In 1987, you first lampooned Trump's presidential trial balloon. Are you surprised by how prescient you were?

A. I'm not sure that prescience had much to do with it. I was simply reacting to the speculation Trump was ginning up with his ads. Early on, I realized Trump was actually a fully formed, out-of-the-box toon, so I just conscripted him as he was and added him to my cast. Thereafter, I used the "news" he was generating as a starting point for a narrative arc, folding in the other characters as needed. Eventually, he became a regular.

Q. Did you really ever believe Trump would become the nominee of a major political party?

A: Not the nominee, no. I figured he'd eventually run, survive long enough to be disruptive and then hop out once he'd extracted the maximum promotional value.

Q. When you wrote in 1987 that Job One of Trump's agenda would be a White House we can be proud of (picturing a towering White House portico), were you anticipating the TRUMP name slapped on the White House?

A. I don't know about putting his name on it, but let's face it, the White House screams "tear-down".

Q. To what degree do you personally lament that some of your scorched-earth satire about Trump has amazingly come to pass?

A. All of it. I weep for our country.

Q. Do you bear even a small amount of responsibility for giving him the idea of being a reality TV or beauty contest host, a stage from which he would achieve fame and eventually launch his presidential bid?

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Q. Of the real-life figures you've satirized in Doonesbury, where is Trump on the list of easy targets? Shooting fish in a barrel?

A. Quite the opposite. As has been widely observed, Trump is beyond traditional parody. His demeanor, speech and behavior are so over the top, there's no point in trying to exaggerate it. That only leaves you with framing, somehow recontextualizing his repugnant behavior so it's thrown into high relief. For instance, I did a Sunday page in which "The Donnie" takes down the other kids in a middle school cafeteria. It's the same language he normally uses, but the strip shows you just how unserious and pathetic his name-calling really is.

Q. How do you explain how someone not steeped in policy with no discernible vision can rise to the top?

A. I think the conventional wisdom is correct here — it's all about emotion, an appeal not to reason or principle but to bigotry and fear.

Q.What irks you most about Trump?

A. His cynicism. The people who love Donald Trump don't seem to understand that he doesn't love them back. These are folks who are anxious about the new economy and globalization and who often find themselves struggling to get by. Trump has a word for people like that: losers. It's the biggest con of his career, and I have to hit it harder.

Q. As a cartoonist, how much does the Trump hair help your visuals?

A. It helps, but I still find it hard to get right. And I've been drawing it since it was brown, back before it turned into the tangerine and gilt confection we see today.

Q. Have you ever met him?

A. No.

Q. You clearly got under his skin along the way with Trump proclaiming: "I can't understand what Doonesburyis all about." Do you wear that as a badge of honor?

A. No, I see it as a book blurb. Blowback to a cartoonist is mud to a pig — the more the better.

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The back flap of Yuge! is proof that Trudeau means it. Trump's words, after all, form the author's bio: "Garry Trudeau is the 'sleazeball' 'third-rate talent' who draws the 'overrated' comic strip Doonesbury, which 'very few people read.' He lives in New York City with his wife Jane Pauley, who 'has far more talent than he has.' "

Richard Harris is a former producer of NPR’s All Things Considered and former senior producer of ABC’s Nightline. That’s where he first got to know Garry Trudeau, whose book Yuge!30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump was published July 5 by Andrews McMeel.